Moving Boxes
by sapereaude13
Summary: Persona 3, spoilers through Nov 4. Knowing Mitsuru, she's probably planning what goes in which box, how to get it all organized the most efficiently, how to maximize the space. Even with that bastard's stuff, she's being Mitsuru Kirijo. Akihiko/Mitsuru


To his knowledge, no one's been in there since the full moon. The office up on the fourth floor. The dorm's been hushed, almost as silent as a tomb since she's returned. Whether it's out of respect or out of fear, everyone has steered clear of her. She came back late the day before, a flurry of paperwork in her arms and dark circles under her eyes. If she came down to eat, she did so when no one else was around.

He doesn't know what to say. He'd like to shake the hand of the person that would know what to say in times like these. Has it only been a month since they lost Shinji? And now another blow, and with it, betrayal. He's been extra hard on the punching bag the past few days since it's all happened. A punch imagining it's that bastard's face, another punch on her behalf.

Akihiko knows that she's grieving, but he'd seen her come in with some cardboard boxes earlier that evening, and he can't let her do this alone. So he leans against the bannister, the double doors separating him from where she's dumping the psychopath's crap in the boxes. Knowing Mitsuru, she's probably planning what goes in which box, how to get it all organized the most efficiently, how to maximize the space. Even with that bastard's stuff, she's being Mitsuru Kirijo.

He knocks on the door and waits. Even in this state, he doubts that she'll tell him to go away. She was raised to be polite, to grit her teeth and let unpleasant things roll off of her. Her voice is quiet, but he hears it. "Yes?"

He looks inside, staying in the doorway. The door to the bastard's office is open, and as he predicted, Mitsuru has the boxes lined up in a neat row on the couch. She doesn't even look up as she emerges from the office, her arms full of books. Her features are pained but determined as she sets the stack of books down on the floor. She sits down on the floor and crosses her legs as demurely as she can. He can't look away from her heartbroken expression as she eyes the nearest box, picking up one book and setting it down inside. Akihiko watches her do this with the entire pile, and from where he's standing, he can't really understand her methods, but it appears that every book has its place.

"Need some help?" he finally decides to interrupt, and she doesn't say anything, her brow furrowed as she continues arranging the books within. He moves on past her and the boxes, through the doorway. There's still plenty of crap to clean out, and if Mitsuru wasn't in the next room, he'd probably just open a window and throw it all out into the alley. Akihiko goes to the nearest shelf and grabs a few books at random. Lab notebooks, a few collections of jokes. What a front he'd managed to keep up all this time.

Disgusted, he brings the books back into the other room, pausing beside her. "Where do these go?"

She doesn't look at his face, her eyes instead scanning the spines of the books in his arms. Mitsuru frowns. "Are these from the shelf by the window?"

He doesn't really know where he grabbed them from. "No, by the door...I think."

Mitsuru rises to her feet and takes the books from him. "I haven't gotten to these yet." She sets them down next to an empty box but doesn't put them in. He follows her back into the abandoned office, her eyes looking so tired as she scans the shelves of books still to go through. "I wonder if there are any worth adding to our collections."

Akihiko doesn't know much about books, aside from the ones he uses for school, so he stays quiet and lets her think. He hopes that just having another person in the room will break her out of her self-isolation. She grabs a few heavy dictionaries from the shelf, and he wants to take them from her. He knows she's taken on too many – but that's just the way she's always been. He gives her a wide berth as she trudges out of the room, her arms full of dusty books. If she's annoyed with him following her back and forth, she hasn't given much indication.

By now, she already has another empty box open and a marker. She sits on the couch and writes on the cardboard lid. Mitsuru is scrawling "Ikutsuki – Dictionaries" on it as if he's some friend moving out of town rather than the bastard who killed her father right before her eyes. The marker in her hand doesn't even tremble as she writes. He can't stand this any longer, and he pulls the marker from her before she can finish her labeling.

Her eyes are curious. "Stop." She holds her hand out. "I wasn't finished."

He tosses the marker off in a corner of the room, hearing it scatter across the floor and under one of the other bookcases. "You need a break. Let's go get some coffee."

She wrinkles her nose. "You don't drink coffee."

Akihiko sits down on the couch beside her, shoving a box, "Ikutsuki – Papers," aside. Mitsuru holds the empty box in her lap, her fingers curled around the edges. He isn't sure what to say. It's not helping her to do this. Cataloging and filing the man's belongings when they should be burning in a dumpster. But in her mind, it must make sense. Everything had its place, its order. He'd never fully understand that part of her, that need to do everything "the right way." He did things the way that made the most sense at the time, so long as his goals were met. And what made sense to Akihiko would be to just throw Ikutsuki's crap away. But he was Akihiko. She was Mitsuru Kirijo.

"He had a lot of books," she remarks.

Would Shinji have known what to say at a time like this? Probably not. He would have said "Throw this shit away, Kirijo" and pissed her off by doing so before she could finish her labeling. But again, he wasn't Shinji. He wasn't that impulsive.

Mitsuru leans back against the couch cushions, letting the box slide off her lap and down to her feet. She's close enough to touch, if he wants to offer her sympathy with a hand hold or a friendly pat on the shoulder. If Takeba was up here, she'd probably give Mitsuru a good shake. He keeps his hands to himself, respecting her space. He stares ahead, looks at the blank screen and control panels. Why doesn't he know how to talk to her? She listened after Shinji...maybe he just needs to offer her the same courtesy. He'll listen. He listens to her even breathing, to the way her fingernails absently scrape across the fabric of her sleeves for lack of anything better to do.

He listens to her stretch, the sound of her joints popping and the annoyed sigh she utters making him laugh.

She chuckles too. "We're getting old, Akihiko."

"We?" He looks at her with a quirk of his lips. "You're the one making all those strange sounds. What the hell were you doing before I got here? Rearranging the furniture?"

"Just packing," she reassures him quietly.

"Let Junpei and Minato pack for you. They could use some manual labor. I swear, Mitsuru, the chore list went straight to hell without you here," he tells her. It was true. Dishes went unwashed, mail was scattered all over the tables, and somehow, Junpei's dirty clothes had ended up in the hallway. Without Mitsuru around, things had grown a bit lax.

She looks forlorn. "I am sorry to have been so neglectful here. With all the meetings..."

What he meant as something funny has inadvertently upset her, and he feels like an ass. She's been working nonstop these past few days, dealing with her father's passing, the Kirijo Group, working damage control, and now packing up Ikutsuki's things. She hasn't had a break, and he's making her feel bad for not being bossy about chores?

Mitsuru stands, shakily, reaching for the arm of the sofa to steady herself. She moves the empty box at her feet aside with the tip of her boot. "I have movers coming early tomorrow. We have to have everything ready..."

She disappears back into the Chairman's office, and he wants to kick himself. Some comfort he was. All he wants to do is help her, get her back to normal. It's strange seeing her this down on herself – can't she see that none of this is her fault? "Mitsuru," he calls after her, but she doesn't come out. He rises from the sofa, dodging the boxes to wait in the doorway. She's standing in front of Ikutsuki's desk, and she has some papers in her arms, but she isn't moving.

If he didn't know better, he'd say spontaneous Apathy syndrome, but there's still emotion in her eyes, much as she seems to want to hide it. He approaches her slowly, easing the papers from her fingers to set them back on the desk. "Come on, how about that coffee? I'll have the others clean this."

She looks at him mournfully, and he doesn't know what to do. He merely stands there, desperately ignoring the urge to do...something, anything to make her happy again. And if not happy, at least back to her usual self. Mitsuru openly grieving is a strange sight, and he feels paralyzed. He's confused enough about her, the last link he has to life with Shinji. She's been on his mind all month – he can't lose Shinji and then lose her too. Whatever that means, he's not entirely sure, but with the Dark Hour and Shadows and Ikutsuki, all of it...he knows his head's not on straight any longer.

Mitsuru steps forward. "Can I..." She hesitates. "Could I just?" He doubts that she's ever asked this of anyone, and he lets her move into his space, her arms wrapping hesitantly around him as she lays her head against his shoulder. He doesn't move to hold her back, not yet. She's not in the right state of mind. Let her take what she needs – he wouldn't dare use this as an excuse to be the one who gets to hug Mitsuru Kirijo.

"I want it to stop, just for a minute," she whispers against his neck. "I failed, Aki."

He's never heard an admission like this from her. He draws strength from her convictions, from her drive and ability to always move forward. To hear this from her aches, and he closes his eyes, embracing her in return. She doesn't cry, not openly. She'll wait. He moves to stroke her hair. It said so in that book – it would be comforting, wouldn't it? Mitsuru allows it, but only for a brief moment.

She breaks apart from him slowly, withdrawing her arms hesitantly. Even after all these years, he can't really recall hugging her. It felt...right, somehow, to be the one there. To be the one she chose for a moment like this. But these thoughts are clouding his mind, and his vision is foggy. Mitsuru backs away, biting her lip. "I'm sorry," she mutters, and he wants to roll his eyes. Apologizing for needing encouragement? A brief moment of comfort? He sometimes thinks Aigis is more human.

She smiles weakly and picks up the papers, letting him trail her again into the other room. She arranges them on the couch beside another box. He stays at a comfortable distance. Mitsuru asks him to have Minato and Junpei pack in accordance with the system she's already set up, and she leaves the room quietly. He doesn't see her again that night, and he digs up the marker from where he'd tossed it.

Junpei makes jokes about book burnings and garage sales for Ikutsuki's things while Minato merely smiles where Junpei expects him to. They get the office packed up, and Akihiko labels the boxes himself. If this eases Mitsuru's burden, even slightly, then he needs to do it right. The movers come the next day and haul away the painful reminders of the man they'd trusted. Fuuka informs him later that afternoon that Mitsuru had locked the door to the office and thrown away the key.


End file.
